It's All One Big Conspiracy
by PotentialTempest
Summary: Four times Bella's conspiracy theories conspired against her love life - and one time they worked in her favor. A "Five Things" fic. Bella/Edward. AU/AH. Warning: There be religious and political blaspheming here.


Disclaimer: Twilight and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. I'm not making any money off of this. I am neither a member of the government nor any sort of conspiracy theorist. The viewpoints expressed in this story are not mine or Stephenie Meyer's.

Author's Note: Really this just started from the idea of Bella freaking out about the CIA listening in on phone-sex, and snow-balled from there! Haha. These theories are all real things that people believe! Including the lizard-men. Thanks to my muse, Caitlin, for whom my heart beats :) I hope you like it, babe!

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{one}

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"Absolutely not," Bella steadfastly told her new friend, crossing her arms over her chest. It was only her first week in Forks, and already Alice was trying to hook her up with someone. Bella just wanted to keep her head down. She didn't need to attract any attention to herself, especially with the current political climate.

Bella hasn't even intended on making any new friends – anonymity was better, she reasoned. But ever since the dark-haired girl had bounded up to her and proclaimed, "We're going to be _such_ good friends, I can just tell!" Bella had been unable to shake her.

"But why not?" Alice asked, genuinely confused. "He's a total fox, and he is warm for your form, girl." Alice's tone was appreciative. The boy in question was attractive, Bella supposed – if you liked your men… clean cut. He just seemed a little too perfect to be true. It made her suspicious.

Bella scoffed. "I am involved."

"You are?" Alice asked, sounding shocked. "You are not. With whom? You told me you didn't have anyone special in your life!"

"Well, okay," Bella relented, picking at the fraying ends of her sleeves. "He's not in my life _right now_, but soon I'll have enough cash saved up to make it to Jamaica, and there I can finally find Tupac, who is _obviously_ my soul mate, and we can make beautiful little Machiavellian chocolate-vanilla swirl babies," she rambled, sighing longingly as she finished.

"Tupac?" Alice asked in disbelief. She looked at Bella, torn between horror and amusement. "Tupac is _dead_," she reminded her new friend.

Bella looked aghast. "Bite your tongue, wench!"

.

{two}

.

Eventually, Bella succumbed to Alice's unrivalled powers of persuasion. She just kept saying that the man she saw in Bella's future was "all vanilla, sorry, honey." On top of that, she started wondering aloud about how "Surely Tupac wouldn't want an inexperienced woman," with which Bella had to agree.

So when Mike Newton asked her out in the beginning of their senior year, Bella agreed – although somewhat reluctantly – to go to dinner with him.

One dinner turned into two, and then three, and evolved into movies and awkward groping in the back-seat of his car, and before she knew it, Bella not only had a "boyfriend," but had just "met his parents."

Mike, she could tell, was inordinately pleased at how much his mother seemed to like Bella. "She's so funny!" Mrs. Newton had exclaimed delightedly to her son when Bella started telling Mike's father about the base the Nazis had established on the moon well before the Americans or the Russians had gotten there. Bella thought Mike's mom had a rotten sense of humor, but had shrugged it off.

Mike was going on about their relationship, and Bella had to force her mind away from Nazi UFOs to concentrate on what he was saying.

"I just – I love you, Isabella Swan. I love you and your clumsy feet, your awkward ways, your wacky sense of humor." _Way to wax poetic_, she thought. Sure didn't sound like love to her. She really didn't think she was that funny.

Although she didn't respond but for a furrowed brow, his smile didn't dim. "It's okay; you don't have to say anything yet. But just think, Bella – prom, and then graduation, and then we can go to college together! Doesn't that sound fantastic? I can't wait to share that with you."

He sounded so earnest that she almost felt bad as she cocked an eyebrow at him. "Um, Mike. I thought you wanted to go to U-Dub. I don't think that constitutes 'going to college together.'" She used air quotes to emphasize her citation. "Seattle is nowhere near Yale."

"Yale?" he asked, confusion written all over his face. "Why the hell would you want to go to school in Connecticut?"

She looked at him as if she could not believe how slow he was. "What, you think my good grades were so I could get into a state school? How on earth would I get into Skull and Bones at U-Dub? I'm thinking about my future, here," she said patronizingly.

"Yeah?" he responded, starting to scowl. "Well I was talking about _our_ future."

_Yeah, the future you decided on without consulting me._ She sighed long-sufferingly. "So you aren't going to move to Connecticut with me?" She refrained from smirking. _Guess you don't love me as much as you say you do,_ she thought nastily.

Mike stared at her for a long moment with his mouth hanging open. "Bella," he began placatingly. "You cannot be serious. Skull and Bones is just some ridiculous conspiracy!" _Of course I'm not serious. This is just my wacky sense of humor._

She rolled her eyes. "What are you talking about? It has produced countless presidents and other politicians, as well as hundreds of other people in high places!"

"Bella," he began again, putting on his practical tone. _Tupac would never speak to me so condescendingly_. "It's just a group, like any other fraternity. Couldn't you just join Alpha Gam or something?"

Bella looked scandalized, curling her lip at him. "It is not just any old fraternity! It has its grimy hands in everything! Skull and Bones practically controls the government, and I m going to infiltrate that sucker, just you wait."

"No, Bella," he said angrily. "I am not going to wait for you to satisfy your ridiculous curiosity just to find out that it's all a bunch of hype."

She huffed angrily, crossing her arms over her chest and sticking her nose in the air pompously. "So it looks like this is good-bye," Bella said dramatically. "You'll regret this when I'm the first Presidentess of the United States!"

She stood to gather her belongings, ignoring the dumbfounded expression on Mike's face. "Why on earth do you even want to be President?" he asked after a moment's tense silence. "You hate the government."

She stood in the doorway facing him, her coat and purse clutched to her chest. "Only because I don't know what it's up to! But if I could get in there…" Her voice took on a dreamy quality. "If I could infiltrate it at the top level – well that'd be a prime position, don't you think?" After another moment of silence, she added thoughtfully, "Well not _quite_ as prime as the papacy, but I think that's a little farfetched, don't you? Well, 'bye then!" she added and scampered, leaving Mike and his nonplussed expression in her wake. _Well, at least he was too confused to be heartbroken_.

.

{three}

.

Not three years later, Bella was happily situated in her dorm in New Haven, anxiously awaiting her invitation to Skull and Bones sometime this upcoming semester. She'd done well for herself, becoming editor of the Yale Daily News and courting a member of the executive board for the Political Union.

Who was currently on the phone. Begging.

"Come on, Bella, how else are we going to get through the rest of the semester? You're in the States, I'm in Spain…" he said alluringly.

She growled. "I am not _having sex_" – she dropped her voice to a whisper for the phrase – "with you over the phone, Sebastian!" Bella exclaimed shrilly. "People will hear! I don't want people to know what I like!"

"What are you on about? It's not like I live with anyone, so there's no one to pick up the other phone on this line, and you're on your cell," he said reasonably.

"Yes, exactly!" she hissed. Bella sat down on her bed and crossed her arms, tapping her foot anxiously. "I'm on my cell! In the _United States_! Don't you realize what that means? You're supposed to be in politics! People are always listening."

"The U.S. government is not listening in on our phone calls," Sebastian told her with the air of someone who had explained this several times already. She could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "Well, not unless we say something like 'drug cartel' or 'bombs in the White House.'" His voice was teasing.

His girlfriend didn't find it very amusing. "Well if they weren't listening before, they most definitely are now!" she insisted, appalled. "My line's tapped for good."

"Aw, what, and the idea of them listening to us doesn't turn you on? Not even a little bit?" When Bella didn't respond, he continued persuasively. "Come on, baby, please. Don't you miss me? Don't you miss my cock? I want you so badly."

"Do not try that on me, boy," she snapped, her voice stern. "I refuse to be distracted. I will not have the CIA listening in while we are talking dirty about – about spanking or something!"

"So you want me to spank you right now, Bella?" Sebastian asked. She blushed.

"Good-_bye_," she said firmly, wishing she had an old-fashioned phone to slam down fiercely. As it stood, she had to settle for merely pressing the little red button on her cell, and hoped that he got the message from her tone of voice.

Bella scoffed audibly. Like she needed his dirty talk to "get through" the semester. She was the imaginative one anyway. She wasn't running out of material with which to entertain herself anytime soon.

.

{four}

.

Alice had told her to "be normal," hadn't she? _Well this is what she gets for setting me up on another blind date._

The date had started out pleasantly enough, Tyler charmed by her adherence to black coffee and Bella happy to take advantage of his offer to pay. They sat comfortably in the squishy armchairs by the window, where Bella was free to watch people. She was currently trying to determine how many of them were really shape-shifting reptilian humanoids. She eyed her date critically. _No_, Bella decided. _He doesn't look like the type of guy a giant lizard-man would change into_. She quelled her fleeting sense of disappointment. _Plus, he definitely wouldn't be so interested in Shakespeare_.

As he took a deep breath after a monologue on Hamlet, she said casually, "You know Shakespeare didn't write his own plays, right?"

Her date looked deeply affronted. "Of course he did – what are you – where is your proof?" he stuttered.

She snickered. "Where's yours?" was her counter. "He was basically illiterate, completely uneducated, and when would a working-class man have the time to write such pieces of work?"

Tyler scowled. "You don't need and education to have a brilliant imagination!"

"Of course not, but those words, that depth? Please," she said dismissively.

He ignored that. "And how do you know he was illiterate, hm?"

"Well, considering the fact that he could barely write his own name…" Bella raised an eyebrow. "I think that says a lot, don't you?"

He obviously did not. "I know plenty of literate people who sign in chicken-scratch. Exhibit A, doctors." Tyler's gaze was triumphant.

She opened her mouth as if to retaliate, but then heard Alice's voice echoing in her head. _Damn her_. Bella offered him a smile instead, which seemed to shock him momentarily.

Not ten minutes later, they were at it again.

"No, but seriously," Bella was saying. "You really think that the son of God didn't get any pussy? You have got to be kidding me."

Her date blushed. "I think that as a man of God, he swore off such sinful carnal relations."

Bella laughed uproariously. "Mary Magdalene –" she began, but Tyler cut her off.

"Cheese and rice," he said. "I do not need to hear any more about how Mary Magdalene is a prostitute."

Bella rolled her eyes. "No, not any of that rubbish. But she was definitely an apostle, maybe the only one, and the wife of Jesus."

"But why would anyone keep that a secret? Even if it were true, which it is obviously not." _Seriously, an honest-to-goodness Catholic? What was Alice thinking?_

"Um, to advance the antiquated ideas of chastity and patriarchy, et cetera," Bella said without missing a beat, but then added thoughtfully, "Though honestly if the true story were out there it would do wonders for heteronormativity, wouldn't it? It's so odd as it stands," she mused aloud.

"Heteronormativity? What are you, some kind of gender studies major?" he guessed. _Rude._

Bella rolled her eyes. "No, I just like to be well-informed."

"By filling up on ridiculous unproven theories? What a waste of an education," he muttered.

She glared. "And what are you doing with your degree, you holier-than-thou son of a bitch?" she snapped.

Tyler took her insult in stride, still – for some strange reason – eager to prove himself. _Glutton for punishment_, she thought. "I work on global warming for the government."

Bella looked curious. "So is that the branch made to satiate the public that is developing ways to 'combat'" – she used her air quotes again – "it, or the one creating the technologies to further global warming in order to keep the public in a constant state of panic to maintain control?"

He looked at her blankly for a moment before sighing and giving up. As he stood and walking away, Bella waved mischievously. _What a stick in the mud_.

.

{five}

.

"Pearl Harbor?" Bella asked in consternation. "Why the hell would you want to go there?" She had honestly thought Edward had had better taste than that. She was genuinely disappointed.

"Bella," he said patiently. "You know I love World War II history. And Hawaii, love! How beautiful would that be?" His tone was cajoling.

"I'm sure it would be lovely, but can't we just go to, like, Bora Bora or something for the beauty? I am not going to fund the tourism at Pearl Harbor!" she insisted. "The United States government allowed that event to happen!"

"But that's exactly why I want to go," Edward said, surprising her. "It's tragic, what happened there. We can't fault the civilians for that, and the least we could do is go spend a bit of money there, help bolster the local economy. Plus, there's a rally on the seventh of December to protest the government's tacit sanction of the bombing. We were planning on lighting an effigy of FDR on fire and –"

Bella cut him off with a kiss. "This is why I married you. I could have waited for Tupac, but no. You got me." She grinned at him, rubbing his scruffy chin affectionately.

Edward smirked back. "And here I was, thinking it was because I warned you about that swine flu vaccine the government wanted you to get, even while our foremost doctors and scientists disagreed."

"Well, there's that, too. My hero," she teased fondly. Bella paused, running her hands through his unruly hair. "The government sure has its hands in some nasty business." She sighed worriedly.

This time, he kissed her. "Yeah, talk conspiracy to me, baby," he joked.

"Mmm," was all she hummed against his mouth, but as he moved down her body, she cried out, "Elvis is still alive!"


End file.
